Just as extreme weather season kicks off, freshman Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) demanded that President Obama apologize to Oklahoma for allocating funding to climate change research. Bridenstine, a climate denier who serves on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, plans to introduce a bill that defunds climate change research.

“Even climate change alarmists admit the number of hurricanes hitting the U.S. and the number of tornado touchdowns have been on a slow decline for over 100 years,” Bridenstine said on the House floor Tuesday, according to Raw Story. “But here is what we absolutely know. We know that Oklahoma will have tornadoes when the cold jet stream meets the warm Gulf air, and we also know that this President spends 30 times as much money on global warming research as he does on weather forecasting and warning. For this gross misallocation, the people of Oklahoma are ready to accept the President’s apology and I intend to submit legislation to fix this.”

Here is what Director of the National Climatic Data Center Tom Karl had to say about hurricanes, tornadoes, and climate change in 2011: “What we can say with confidence is that heavy and extreme precipitation events often associated with thunderstorms and convection are increasing and have been linked to human-induced changes in atmospheric composition.” Meanwhile, climate scientists are in near universal agreement that climate change is driven by human activity.

Bridenstine also recently accused Obama of “dishonesty, incompetence, vengefulness” in an unhinged speech on the House floor.

Related Posts:

Oklahoma and Texas, Hotbeds Of Climate Change Denialism, Wracked By Another Year Of Warming-Worsened Droughts

Please tell me how these ‘climate change deniers’ get on the GD Science and Technology committees. No wonder we are decades behind the rest of the civilized/educated world when it comes to green technology.

I know! It totally blows my MIND that the people on these committees are completely archaic and backwards in their thinking! Why aren’t our nation’s brightest minds serving on these committees instead of these ignoramuses??

The answer to your question is that the leadership of both parties get to appoint committee memberships. The majority party gets the larger share, and also the chairmanship. Note that this is the same as the answer to the question: “How did Michelle Bachmann get on the House Intelligence Committee?” – an oxymoron of epic proportions.
I’d also offer that the current day Republican Party can only choose committee memberships from their Tea Party heavy loony bin, but that is such an insult to actual loons.

Yep, Bridenstine on the Science committee is right in line with Bachmann on the Intelligence Committee. That was my first thought, too.
Or, for that matter, Clarence Thomas getting to call himself “Justice” . . . .

I wish I knew half as much about the history of OZ as you do about US. Beyond the Sundowners, On The Beach, the Melbourne Olympics, Waltzing Mathilda, The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda, The ANZACs and Gallipoli, and a devil named Taz (a Loony Tune I HAVE seen), that’s pretty much it. I know the Brits sent their criminals down under and their religious zealots to the Colonies. You seem to have gotten over your handicapped beginning pretty well – US, not so much.

Watched The Sundowners the other night. A wonderful movie with Mitchum, as ever, terrific, and with a great bushie accent. We get saturated with US news, and the Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas fiasco burned into my memory. Where is Anita Hill these days? And ‘Long Dong Silver’, if memory serves. Ah, salad days, when I was green.

The problem is that Tom Karl, the director of the National Climatic Data Center, used this phrase, “human-induced changes in atmospheric composition”, and Bridenstine couldn’t understand those poly-syllabic words. Intelligent scientists need to learn to speak in simplistic language so our law-makers can understand them……………..cuz this Bridenstine certainly appears to be a dull tool in the wood shed if he doesn’t think that climate change is not only inevitable but occurring and evident.

The current global infestation of Rightwing robopaths is the most malignant ever, particularly in the Anglosphere. They do not ‘think’- they react in a Pavlovian response to stimuli. They see someone who values human life and the continuance of our species more highly than fossil fuel profits (and their tiny cut thereof)and the saliva begins flowing. This drooling and the yapping and growling that accompany it presage attack, and they have sharp fangs, too. Canines not sufficiently rabid (‘self-hating conservatives’) are put down by their rich owners, ‘to encourage the others’. That way the pack grows ever more vicious and dangerous. The craziness is also intended to intimidate the human beings, and it certainly seems to be working.

Don, I defended your honor on another blog earlier today. A commenter had categorized Oklahoma as a former Confederate state. I, having seen the play, corrected his error, told him who the Sooners were, and when the land rush occurred.

PS. My wife’s cousin is a researcher at OK State – weather, tornadoes, etc. He’s predicted hellish weather for us in Chicagoland starting this evening. He called Hurricane Sandy to a ‘T’, but was a bit fooled, as were most, by the Moore twister.

These knuckleheads of the American Right,just criticise President Obama, because..They do not examine his proposals in the spirit of Helpful Critique. Their Racism is so putrid, one wonders about the level of their education. Are they all Kindergarten Dropouts.. Unbelievable

Another Republican idiot who doesn’t have a clue about what he’s the issues… just another opportunity to bash the President! Do these fools even think about what they are saying? What’s increasing obvious and sad, is that most actually believe their lies and propaganda!

As our former, and best, PM, Gough Whitlam joked (no doubt inappropriately) when asked about abortion, (paraphrasing his words), ‘Yes I believe it should be the woman’s choice, and, in certain circumstances, should be performed retrospectively’.

So this is the kind of genius that represents Oklahoma. They think it is horrible for America to study any weather science that dares contradict everlasting Tea-Jesus Truth. On the other hand these are the same folk who want us to lavish our FEMA money on them every time they get a little ordinary wind damage. I think they would be happier if we just let their Tea-God do to them whatever he wants.

I thin I have found the root cause of the horrific tornadoes that have been causing so much damage in Ok. It’s that “Big Bag of a Blow Hard” they got in Congress that is busy denying climate change. If they get one of those big winds to blow thay “Blow Hard”, freshman Rep. Jim Bridenstine, out of the state and Congress they should see a marked drop in tornadoes.

I want to know when Oklahomans are going to pay back all that money they get from the Treasury that they don’t pay in taxes. Another right to work state, and the people don’t make enough to even pay for their own state functions. How about this guy apologizes to those of us who do pay taxes?

I would be interested in how he would go about writing that bill. Researchers who study species or ecosystems are looking at their results and realizing the impacts of climate change are happening now, even if that wasn’t their original hypothesis. Unless his bill defunds all science research? I suppose that could be his goal.

Oklahoma needs to apologize, profusely, to me and all of America, for the corrupt and ignorant representatives that they continue to send to Congress. No greater lobbyists for dirty fuels, no greater propagandists, costing us many lives annually and billions and billions of dollars and very possibly the future stability of our economy and society, walk the halls of Congress that those from Oklahoma. Gross corruption, negligence, deceit, violation of the oaths of office, undermining of the Constitution, and a complete selling-out of their apparently ignorant constituents.

The voters of Oklahoma have no one to blame but themselves for the weather disasters they have been increasingly subjected to when they continue to vote for such fools to Congress. No matter how vociferous one’s denial of climate change, it will not go away. It only promises to get worse.

Please,Please, do not judge Okie’s by this crack pot in Oklahoma City. These people running our state government ie: “The Tea Party” are lackys for the KOCH’s and right wing of the GOP. When your fighting HART voting machines owned by Bain Capital,big money from corporations back East, it’s impossible to elected sane people in this state. Our new state motto should be, “The Reason WE’re All Here Becuase We Anit All There”.

OK – let him loose the roof of his house and things would be different. Let him propose to take OK out of the science regarding global warming – and the monies – and anything that would give the state any warnings. Then see if he would be reelected.

Folks, it’s far worse than it looks at first glance. Rep Bridenstine earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, business and psychology from Rice and an MBA from Cornell. He is also a veteran (Navy fighter pilot) and a reserve Naval officer. This puts him well into the top of the elite of our society in terms of education and achievement. We’re not dealing with ignorance, stupidity, or lack of education. We’re dealing with deliberate misinformation and political gamesmanship on an issue that our existing systems for shared decision-making have failed woefully to address. So, it’s business as usual politics and, as we all know, business as usual on climate change means catastrophe.

Comments like these from the Oklahoma Congressman are the reason I was conflicted about providing relief aid to Oklahoma after the recent devastating tornado. The people of Oklahoma will go ahead and re-elect this idiot, acting like children who need the protection of adults to counter their own self-destructive urges.